7 ms·

For us living in Canada, we know we pay more than anyone else. And we're constantly reminded of how the Bell, Telus and Rogers mafia keeps it that way.

kennywinker 7y ago
Yeah, but the reason we know we pay more is reports like this. If this stands, five-to-ten years from now they can say "well actually that's not true anymore blah blah blah our fake reports" and there is no independent data to counter their claims. Smart move on their part.
gpm 7y ago
I live in Canada and everyone says this, I don't think it's really that true. I was in California for this summer - I paid about the same for a cell service there as I do here... All numbers in USD. For a quick comparison of "premium" cell providers, an unlimited (15gb before throttling) verizon wireless line is $70 per month [0]. A comparable Canadian plan for Bell is $56 per month for 10gb before throttling, or $71 per month for 20 gb before throttling. Most people don't pay that much in reality, because of group discounts and so on, but that applies in both cases. The story is similar if we look at budget cell phone providers. Google Fi (US) provides unlimited talk and text for $20gb/month with data for $10gb/month. Freedom mobile (Canada) doesn't provide as much flexibility, and you have to select your amount of data up front, but for any amount of data it's cheaper. E.g. for 2gb it's $30/month instead of $40. [2] [0] https://www.verizonwireless.com/plans/ https://www.verizonwireless.com/plans/ - change the number of lines to 1, this is 15gb data before throttling per their faq https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/verizon-plan-unlimited-faqs/ https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/verizon-plan-unlimit... [1] Remember to convert CAD to USD https://www.bell.ca/Mobility/Cell_phone_plans/Unlimited-plans https://www.bell.ca/Mobility/Cell_phone_plans/Unlimited-plan... [2] Click on "Freedom Plans" here, remember to convert CAD to USD https://www.freedommobile.ca/en-CA/plans https://www.freedommobile.ca/en-CA/plans
- jammygit 7y ago
  My bell plan is 95 CAD and gives 4GB/mo so I’m not sure where your numbers came from. I must have missed that deal
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    Depends on province. Freedom is creating some competition, hopefully they don’t get crushed.
    - jammygit 7y ago
      I used to use freedom. My wife used to say it was short for “freedom from service.” There were a lot of dead zones in the town I lived and it was useless on road trips. Good prices and terms at least
      - Scoundreller 7y ago
        They're better than they were: They've got 700MHz spectrum so they can actually penetrate in a building. And they usually include a gb or 2 on Rogers' network. I'm actually tempted to switch, but already on an okay plan from Public where I've learned to ration. Just wish Freedom sold a trial plan or something for a month so I could see what it's like living with them. Paying $50 + $10 SIM + taxes discourages me.
        geoka9 7y ago
        > And they usually include a gb or 2 on Rogers' network. Is it a relatively new thing? PS. I used to be a customer but switched away because of their very limited coverage.
        Scoundreller 7y ago
        Maybe. Keeping track of cell phone deals is a full-time job. Meanwhile, residents of other countries just go to the mall, walk out with a plan that'll meet their needs and improves every year, and doesn't think about it again :)
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  Verizon’s price drops by 50% once you get to 4 lines. You won’t find that in Canada. And once you hit 15gb, you’re still getting 600kbps. Freedom limits you to 256 (or 128 outside their limited footprint) once you go over. T-mobile’s $40/month plans (if you can string in 4 friends/family) will have unlim streaming video, 5gb of roaming in Canada, an SD Netflix subscription, 1 hour of in-flight wifi and start throttling you at 50gb. edit: That's $40 with taxes and fees included. They advertise it that way! Each of the above are unthinkable in Canada. We choose phone plans based on their restrictions, not their extras. I know, population density and all, but compare to Australia, Russia or Iceland, and Canadians are still getting hosed. Don't even get me started on France. Going in a month and will soon order a SIM card. And the provider will mail anywhere in France at no charge...
  - boringg 7y ago
    I'll add that I am on T-mobile living in Canada and have been for 6 months and haven't switched over because all in we have two people @ $100, 24 gb data, unlimited can, us, mexico, and all sorts of other random data perks. The quality of the service has been great for the most part. No penalty fees for being in the US or in Canada - except any Canadian people calling us or texting us get charged since it's international (ridiculous). Technically we're supposed to be kicked off our plan but we keep returning to the US to keep our plan alive (and for business, etc). Not saying it's amazing - but way better than the Canadian telco plans we've seen.
    - Scoundreller 7y ago
      1. You will have better coverage with T-Mobile than with any Canadian plan because T-Mob has roaming agreements with all of our "competitors". 2. Through Voip.ms, you could setup a local Canadian number and give that out to people to call you. It'll cost you a dollar a month and about 1cent/minute for forwarding the calls. I have one that goes straight to their voicemail-to-email gateway for calls I never want to answer :)
      - boringg 7y ago
- Moru 7y ago
  One of the providers[0] in Sweden: 8 GB data - $7.52, 25 GB - $12.6. $17.6 for 100 GB. All accounts carry over unused data up to 100 GB indefinitely. 13 GB data anywhere in EU/EES. [0] https://www.hallon.se/mobiltelefoni https://www.hallon.se/mobiltelefoni
  - tpmx 7y ago
    Tele2 Sweden "Unlimited" - 50 GB/day @ $50/month. Works very well as a replacement for FTTH in rural areas. But the prices in e.g France, eastern Europe and Taiwan all put us to shame.
    - martinald 7y ago
      UK is probably the cheapest market relative to GDP per capita. Three offers unlimited data, calls, texts and roaming with no throttling including 5G for £17/month.
      - tpmx 7y ago
        Actual competition is a hell of a thing. I'm pretty sure there are some backroom price fixing agreements between the Swedish operators, the profit margins wouldn't hover around 30-40% if there wasn't. There were some dawn raids on these companies last year by EU antitrust authorities, but they didn't find any actionable evidence. :/
  - nikanj 7y ago
    The US/Canada prices are usually justified by low population density and high cost of living. But, uh, Sweden has a higher cost of living, and a lower population density.
    - gpm 7y ago
      Huh? That doesn't sound right, so I googled it. Sweden has a population density of 23 people per square kilometer, Canada has a population density of 4 people per square kilometer.
- superhuzza 7y ago
  I just moved from Quebec to the UK. For a plan with exactly the same conditions and data amount, I am paying 10 GBP = 16.43 CAD instead of 46 CAD after tax. And that was a competitively priced plan in Quebec. Telco in Canada is embarrassing.
  - ehsankia 7y ago
    10 GBP for a phone plan is insanely low. I don't know how it is in Europe, but in the US it's definitely nowhere as cheap, which is the comment the person above was making. I too was in California, and I pay 40USD for everything + 2GB of data. In Quebec, I'm not sure if I got a special deal, but I got 55CAD for 9GB of data, which with conversion ratio is roughly 40USD.
    - vertex-four 7y ago
      This sort of pricing is normal for Europe. We even have free roaming in all of the EU now. North America just has extortionate pricing.
    - Scoundreller 7y ago
      > 10 GBP for a phone plan is insanely low. That's the thing: A luxury plan in Canada is a basic plan overseas. When I visit France and buy a 10 EUR plan that's "Good for a Canadian" for my 1-2 week stay from a random provider, people look at me funny because the brand is associated with the unemployed and refugees.
      - brmgb 7y ago
        > the brand is associated with the unemployed and refugees Come on. There is no provider associated with the unemployed and refugees in France. 10€ pre-paid should get you unlimited call and texts and something like 1Go of data and no one will bat an eye. Plans are actually quite cheap too. I pay 15€ for unlimited everything and you can get as low as 2€ for 2h of call, unlimited texts and 50Mo of data.
        7y ago
- post_below 7y ago
  The problem is that you're comparing two corrupt markets. You're absolutely right, it's not much better in the US: Behemoth providers making absurd profits not based on any kind of free market with the money to afford the lobbying and advertising to keep it that way.
- raydev 7y ago
  > Remember to convert CAD to USD Absolutely not. We aren't importing data from the US. You can't tie exchange rate to CoL.
  - gpm 7y ago
    So what, you'd say we have "the cheapest cell service in the world" if we took our currency and reissued it with 1000 pre-2020 dollar equaling 1 post-2020 dollar [0]? Electronics cost the same amount regardless of what currency you buy them in, which is at least a good portion of the cost of running a cell company. Wages are also similar in the US and Canada. The Canadian GDP per person is slightly greater than the American GDP per person after we convert everything to the same asset (e.g. USD) [1]. So it's not like we are poorer than americans and we need to adjust for that. It just happens to be the case that a loonie is less than a dollar bill, and a toonie more than a dollar bill. [0] There is precedent for doing this, though not in Canada, typically it is done after hyper inflation to make amounts of currency seem more reasonable. [1] https://www.google.ca/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&hl=en&dl=en&idim=country:USA:AUS:JPN#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:USA:AUS:JPN:CHN:CAN:BRA:GBR&ifdim=region&tstart=400921200000&tend=1347692400000&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.ca/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&m...
Scoundreller 7y ago
Was visiting a relative without wifi in USA. Random person offers to tether us to their phone. He said something that no Canadian ever says in this situation: “Go wild, it’s unlimited”.

kennywinker 7y ago

Yeah, but the reason we know we pay more is reports like this. If this stands, five-to-ten years from now they can say "well actually that's not true anymore blah blah blah our fake reports" and there is no independent data to counter their claims. Smart move on their part.

gpm 7y ago

I live in Canada and everyone says this, I don't think it's really that true. I was in California for this summer - I paid about the same for a cell service there as I do here... All numbers in USD. For a quick comparison of "premium" cell providers, an unlimited (15gb before throttling) verizon wireless line is $70 per month [0]. A comparable Canadian plan for Bell is $56 per month for 10gb before throttling, or $71 per month for 20 gb before throttling. Most people don't pay that much in reality, because of group discounts and so on, but that applies in both cases. The story is similar if we look at budget cell phone providers. Google Fi (US) provides unlimited talk and text for $20gb/month with data for $10gb/month. Freedom mobile (Canada) doesn't provide as much flexibility, and you have to select your amount of data up front, but for any amount of data it's cheaper. E.g. for 2gb it's $30/month instead of $40. [2] [0] https://www.verizonwireless.com/plans/ https://www.verizonwireless.com/plans/ - change the number of lines to 1, this is 15gb data before throttling per their faq https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/verizon-plan-unlimited-faqs/ https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/verizon-plan-unlimit... [1] Remember to convert CAD to USD https://www.bell.ca/Mobility/Cell_phone_plans/Unlimited-plans https://www.bell.ca/Mobility/Cell_phone_plans/Unlimited-plan... [2] Click on "Freedom Plans" here, remember to convert CAD to USD https://www.freedommobile.ca/en-CA/plans https://www.freedommobile.ca/en-CA/plans

jammygit 7y ago
My bell plan is 95 CAD and gives 4GB/mo so I’m not sure where your numbers came from. I must have missed that deal
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  Depends on province. Freedom is creating some competition, hopefully they don’t get crushed.
  - jammygit 7y ago
    I used to use freedom. My wife used to say it was short for “freedom from service.” There were a lot of dead zones in the town I lived and it was useless on road trips. Good prices and terms at least
    - Scoundreller 7y ago
      They're better than they were: They've got 700MHz spectrum so they can actually penetrate in a building. And they usually include a gb or 2 on Rogers' network. I'm actually tempted to switch, but already on an okay plan from Public where I've learned to ration. Just wish Freedom sold a trial plan or something for a month so I could see what it's like living with them. Paying $50 + $10 SIM + taxes discourages me.
      - geoka9 7y ago
        > And they usually include a gb or 2 on Rogers' network. Is it a relatively new thing? PS. I used to be a customer but switched away because of their very limited coverage.
        Scoundreller 7y ago
        Maybe. Keeping track of cell phone deals is a full-time job. Meanwhile, residents of other countries just go to the mall, walk out with a plan that'll meet their needs and improves every year, and doesn't think about it again :)
Scoundreller 7y ago
Verizon’s price drops by 50% once you get to 4 lines. You won’t find that in Canada. And once you hit 15gb, you’re still getting 600kbps. Freedom limits you to 256 (or 128 outside their limited footprint) once you go over. T-mobile’s $40/month plans (if you can string in 4 friends/family) will have unlim streaming video, 5gb of roaming in Canada, an SD Netflix subscription, 1 hour of in-flight wifi and start throttling you at 50gb. edit: That's $40 with taxes and fees included. They advertise it that way! Each of the above are unthinkable in Canada. We choose phone plans based on their restrictions, not their extras. I know, population density and all, but compare to Australia, Russia or Iceland, and Canadians are still getting hosed. Don't even get me started on France. Going in a month and will soon order a SIM card. And the provider will mail anywhere in France at no charge...
- boringg 7y ago
  I'll add that I am on T-mobile living in Canada and have been for 6 months and haven't switched over because all in we have two people @ $100, 24 gb data, unlimited can, us, mexico, and all sorts of other random data perks. The quality of the service has been great for the most part. No penalty fees for being in the US or in Canada - except any Canadian people calling us or texting us get charged since it's international (ridiculous). Technically we're supposed to be kicked off our plan but we keep returning to the US to keep our plan alive (and for business, etc). Not saying it's amazing - but way better than the Canadian telco plans we've seen.
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    1. You will have better coverage with T-Mobile than with any Canadian plan because T-Mob has roaming agreements with all of our "competitors". 2. Through Voip.ms, you could setup a local Canadian number and give that out to people to call you. It'll cost you a dollar a month and about 1cent/minute for forwarding the calls. I have one that goes straight to their voicemail-to-email gateway for calls I never want to answer :)
    - boringg 7y ago
Moru 7y ago
One of the providers[0] in Sweden: 8 GB data - $7.52, 25 GB - $12.6. $17.6 for 100 GB. All accounts carry over unused data up to 100 GB indefinitely. 13 GB data anywhere in EU/EES. [0] https://www.hallon.se/mobiltelefoni https://www.hallon.se/mobiltelefoni
- tpmx 7y ago
  Tele2 Sweden "Unlimited" - 50 GB/day @ $50/month. Works very well as a replacement for FTTH in rural areas. But the prices in e.g France, eastern Europe and Taiwan all put us to shame.
  - martinald 7y ago
    UK is probably the cheapest market relative to GDP per capita. Three offers unlimited data, calls, texts and roaming with no throttling including 5G for £17/month.
    - tpmx 7y ago
      Actual competition is a hell of a thing. I'm pretty sure there are some backroom price fixing agreements between the Swedish operators, the profit margins wouldn't hover around 30-40% if there wasn't. There were some dawn raids on these companies last year by EU antitrust authorities, but they didn't find any actionable evidence. :/
- nikanj 7y ago
  The US/Canada prices are usually justified by low population density and high cost of living. But, uh, Sweden has a higher cost of living, and a lower population density.
  - gpm 7y ago
    Huh? That doesn't sound right, so I googled it. Sweden has a population density of 23 people per square kilometer, Canada has a population density of 4 people per square kilometer.
superhuzza 7y ago
I just moved from Quebec to the UK. For a plan with exactly the same conditions and data amount, I am paying 10 GBP = 16.43 CAD instead of 46 CAD after tax. And that was a competitively priced plan in Quebec. Telco in Canada is embarrassing.
- ehsankia 7y ago
  10 GBP for a phone plan is insanely low. I don't know how it is in Europe, but in the US it's definitely nowhere as cheap, which is the comment the person above was making. I too was in California, and I pay 40USD for everything + 2GB of data. In Quebec, I'm not sure if I got a special deal, but I got 55CAD for 9GB of data, which with conversion ratio is roughly 40USD.
  - vertex-four 7y ago
    This sort of pricing is normal for Europe. We even have free roaming in all of the EU now. North America just has extortionate pricing.
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    > 10 GBP for a phone plan is insanely low. That's the thing: A luxury plan in Canada is a basic plan overseas. When I visit France and buy a 10 EUR plan that's "Good for a Canadian" for my 1-2 week stay from a random provider, people look at me funny because the brand is associated with the unemployed and refugees.
    - brmgb 7y ago
      > the brand is associated with the unemployed and refugees Come on. There is no provider associated with the unemployed and refugees in France. 10€ pre-paid should get you unlimited call and texts and something like 1Go of data and no one will bat an eye. Plans are actually quite cheap too. I pay 15€ for unlimited everything and you can get as low as 2€ for 2h of call, unlimited texts and 50Mo of data.
      - 7y ago
post_below 7y ago
The problem is that you're comparing two corrupt markets. You're absolutely right, it's not much better in the US: Behemoth providers making absurd profits not based on any kind of free market with the money to afford the lobbying and advertising to keep it that way.
raydev 7y ago
> Remember to convert CAD to USD Absolutely not. We aren't importing data from the US. You can't tie exchange rate to CoL.
- gpm 7y ago
  So what, you'd say we have "the cheapest cell service in the world" if we took our currency and reissued it with 1000 pre-2020 dollar equaling 1 post-2020 dollar [0]? Electronics cost the same amount regardless of what currency you buy them in, which is at least a good portion of the cost of running a cell company. Wages are also similar in the US and Canada. The Canadian GDP per person is slightly greater than the American GDP per person after we convert everything to the same asset (e.g. USD) [1]. So it's not like we are poorer than americans and we need to adjust for that. It just happens to be the case that a loonie is less than a dollar bill, and a toonie more than a dollar bill. [0] There is precedent for doing this, though not in Canada, typically it is done after hyper inflation to make amounts of currency seem more reasonable. [1] https://www.google.ca/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&hl=en&dl=en&idim=country:USA:AUS:JPN#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:USA:AUS:JPN:CHN:CAN:BRA:GBR&ifdim=region&tstart=400921200000&tend=1347692400000&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.ca/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&m...

Scoundreller 7y ago

Was visiting a relative without wifi in USA. Random person offers to tether us to their phone. He said something that no Canadian ever says in this situation: “Go wild, it’s unlimited”.